Philodox Page 4

  “Nothing you have to worry about, darling.” Jeanette appeared out of the darkness right in front of us, and I jumped so high that I probably could have touched the ceiling. She raised an eyebrow at me, but didn't comment, which I appreciated. “All right, dears. This is the address to a safe house outside of the city where I would like you to go now.” She handed Damon a small, white card. “The key is located under the porcelain frog, you can't miss it.”

  I pointed to the darkness, where the sound of the clicking nails was coming steadily closer. “But, what about...”

  “Don't you worry about that. I'll take care of it. You two head off around the other way, and I'll make sure to keep your little friend busy enough to give you time to leave. The Lincoln is parked where you left it, use that to get to the safe house.”

  “But what about my things?” Damon asked. “We didn't get a chance to make it back to my place.”

  “You are mine now, Damon. You will never want for anything again. Now, go on. I'll join you shortly, and we can discuss getting you a completely new wardrobe on our way to France.”

  She turned away from us and started walking toward the beast. After a moment, she disappeared around the corner. Damon and I looked at each other, then we both shrugged and followed. When we got back to the end of the hall, we turned right instead of left, starting to make our way back around to the doors we originally came through. It said a lot about the trust we had in Jeanette to solve our problems, because our pace was not nearly as hurried on the way back as it was on the way there. Knowing Jeanette was there took a lot of the urgency out of our situation – at least until the building wasn't silent anymore.

  From the darkness, there was a loud screeching noise that set my teeth on edge. Then there was a loud thud that shook the entire building, followed by the most inhuman howl I have ever heard. We broke into a full run, heading for the doors. We made it there in seconds, moving so quickly that we barely had time to register the mess that used to be the entrance to the gymnasium. Another piece of rebar similar to the one tied around the other doors, this one bent and broken nearly in half, was discarded on the floor in front of where one of the doors used to be. Now, there was just a gaping hole, no sign of the door anywhere. The other door was hanging off its hinges, an enormous dent the size of a volleyball in its center. Another screech reverberated through the halls behind us, and then we were through the hole and running for the Lincoln.

  The safe house was a few miles outside of town. When I think of a safe house, I usually picture an old abandoned factory in the middle of an industrial area, or a long abandoned house in the middle of a questionable neighborhood with the windows all boarded up and a chain link fence surrounding the entire property. I certainly do not picture a sprawling farmhouse with a well manicured lawn and a white picket fence located on a tree lined winding country road, but that is precisely what we were now parked in front of. I couldn't see any neighbors from where I stood in the driveway. It was as if someone had cleared an entire field and dropped a house down in the middle of it. There wasn't much for security, but perhaps Jeanette felt that at least this way she would be able to see the enemies coming from far away. I think I would have preferred the chain link fence and graffiti.

  Damon found the key right where Jeanette said it would be, and we stepped inside. The house had a slightly musty smell that made me wonder how long it had been since someone had inhabited it. We stood in the living room, and I could see the kitchen straight ahead. A hallway to the right led to what I assume were bedrooms. Damon went that way to explore, but I headed for the kitchen. Quite a bit had happened since I had last eaten, and I was hungry again.

  The kitchen was rather large. I flicked on the light switch and nearly went blind with the color. Everything was decorated in a loud, electric yellow, from the counters to the cupboards to the square kitchen table and matching chairs. Even the stove and refrigerator were yellow. It made quite a statement. There was a large picture window on one wall that looked out into the backyard, framed by a white curtain with yellow ducks marching merrily along each border.

  The refrigerator was empty, but the cupboards were well stocked with non perishable food. There were plenty of cans of beans and vegetables, a jar of peanut butter, two large bags of rice, boxes of pasta and even a few cases of snack packs. Digging through the drawers, I managed to find a can opener and some silverware. The pots were hanging above the stove, so I took one down and filled it with water, setting it to boil on the stove. I opened two cans of beans and put them in another pot, then grabbed a vanilla snack pack and a spoon. I was licking the lid of the pudding when Damon walked into the kitchen and asked me what I was doing.

  “Making rice and beans.” I grabbed another pudding and offered it to him. “Do you want some?”

  He didn't quite gag, but the face he gave me was pure disgust. “Uh, no. Thank you, though.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot about your whole food thing.”

  “Didn't you just eat a few hours ago?”

  I shrugged. “I can't help it that I'm always hungry.” I licked the snack pack clean, then tossed the empty container in the nearby trash can. The water was boiling, so I added the rice, turned off the heat, and put the lid on the pot. I opened up a nearby cupboard to find a bowl and the phone on the wall started ringing, causing me to slam the cupboard door shut with a loud bang and hit the floor in a defensive crouch. Clearly, I was a little jumpy.

  Damon looked at me, then at the phone, then back to me. “Should I answer it?”

  I slowly stood up from my crouch. “It has to be Jeanette, right? Nobody else knows we're here...”

  “Right. I'm going to answer it.” He reached for the phone, pulling it off the wall and carefully moving the cord so it didn't get tangled. “Uh, hello?” I could hear Jeanette on the other end apologizing for a slight delay and letting Damon know she would get there as quickly as possible. Once I knew it was Jeanette, I tuned the phone call out and focused on my cooking. Damon did a lot of nodding, punctuated with an occasional “uh-huh” or “no, ma'am,” then hung up. “She says she'll be here as quickly as she can, and in the meantime we can make ourselves at home here. Under no circumstances are we to open the door to anyone or let anyone inside, and if she's not here by sunrise, there's a bed in the cellar for me to sleep in.”

  I dumped my rice and beans in the largest bowl I could find, grabbed a fork and dropped everything off at the table. I poured some water into a glass from the kitchen faucet, and sat down in front of my dinner. “Make myself at home? No problem.” I shoved a forkful of food in my mouth and grinned widely at Damon. A few grains of the cooked rice fell out of my mouth and onto my shirt.

  Damon rolled his eyes. “You're disgusting.”

  I grinned even wider, plucked the rice from my shirt and flicked it at him. “But you love me anyway!”

  He laughed as he deftly dodged the rice, but before he could respond I heard the unmistakable sound of a motor and froze. Damon also heard it, and the two of us fell into silence as we waited to see if it would pass by. I closed my eyes for a moment to focus. “It's not just one vehicle, it's multiple. Sounds like at least four cars and two motorcycles.”

  “They might not be coming here,” Damon said, hope in his voice. When the vehicles were parallel to the house and began to slow, he added, with much less hope in his voice, “...maybe they're just admiring the beautiful house as they drive past on to their actual destination...”

  Now it sounded like some of the vehicles were moving around to the back of the house, plowing over the yard with no respect for the landscaping. Remembering the picture window, I grabbed my bowl of rice and beans and dropped down to hide behind the counter, beckoning Damon to follow.

  “Maybe they just want to check out the house from behind, too,” he whispered, before joining me down on the floor. I set my bowl down next to me, crawled over to the light switch, flipped it off, and then scrambled back behind the counter next to Damon. The cars came to a stop and the engines died, creating an eerie silence. I was pretty sure the house was surrounded, and when I whispered that to Damon, he agreed. “I just wish I could see what was going on!” he crawled around the corner of the counter and made his way over to the window, and I followed closely behind him.

  When we made it to the window, Damon was the first to raise his head, peeking just over the lip of the windowsill to try to get a glimpse of what was going on in the yard. Whatever he saw made him tense, so I risked a peek myself. I could see two cars and a motorcycle clearly from my position. I could see the tail end of another car, but the rest of it disappeared around the side of the house, confirming my assumption that they had surrounded the house. I counted six people, which I thought was a little bit of an unfair advantage, considering there were only two of us.

  “Who are those guys?” I whispered.

  “I recognize them from Jeanette's house. They showed up when she took me back that first night. It's all kind of fuzzy, because I was still pretty dead, but I remember some of them. The one there, standing next to the car, Jeanette called him Andre, and the big guy standing next to him she called 'his little enforcer,” Damon murmured. “The one in all leather, sitting on the motorcycle, is The Prince. Apparently he's like the leader of all the vampires in this town or something.”

  “The leader of all the vampires? Isn't that Dracula?”

  “I don't think Dracula is the leader of all the vampires, he's just the most famous. Also, I doubt he lives in Connecticut, Delaney.”

  “Hmm, good point. So, is everyone out there a freaking vampire?” I did a quick head count, and came up with us being very outnumbered. The one Jeanette called Andre was just as tall as Damon, maybe even taller, and built like a tank. He was wearing dark je
ans and a black t-shirt that did a very nice job of accentuating his muscles. Even while wearing dark, clunky looking work boots, he moved in silence. His hair was also dark, and the thick waves fell nearly to his shoulders. He was pacing around the car, listening to whatever the other vampire – his 'little enforcer' – was telling him.

  The enforcer was enormous. He was the largest man I had ever seen, both tall and wide. I would not have been surprised to learn that he was seven feet tall, and his muscles were nearly bursting from his black pinstriped suit. He was completely bald, and his beady eyes and pinched mouth helped make his head look really small. Combined with his huge body, he looked very disproportionate, but still managed to look intimidating as hell, which I suppose was a good thing, considering his job position.

  The Prince was still parked on his motorcycle. He was covered from head to toe in black leather, and a black helmet covered his head. The visor was completely black, too, which I was pretty sure wasn't legal, but I guess when you're a vampire, you don't really care about the law. I narrowed my eyes as I saw him swing his leg around and climb off the bike. The boots he was wearing had at least a six inch heel, and a decidedly feminine style. I was just about to make a comment about the boots to Damon, when the Prince pulled off the helmet, and long, black, curly locks flowed down.

  “Holy shit, the Prince is a woman!” He said a little too loudly.

  “Yeah, and she kind of looks like that Andre guy. Do you suppose they're related?”

  Damon shrugged. “I have no idea. Jeanette doesn't tell me anything, remember?”

  “Do you think they know we're in here?” At the exact moment I finished saying that, all heads turned to stare directly at me, and Damon and I immediately dropped our heads. “Holy crap! Do you think they saw us?” I glanced at the back door, which was located dangerously close to our position. “We need to move. This isn't a good spot. We are way too close to that door.”

  “One of the other rooms maybe? There were windows; we could try to escape out of one of them, maybe?”

  “Good idea! Lead the way.”

  With one last longing glance at my abandoned dinner, we crawled out of the kitchen, through the living room, and into the hallway. Damon passed the first door, explaining in a whisper that it was just a closet, before pushing his way into the second door. The room was sparsely furnished, containing only a bed with a night stand and a dresser in the corner. The best part of the room, though, was the giant window that was definitely large enough for us to climb out of. Unfortunately, when we made our way over to it, we were greeted with the sight of the rest of the cars we couldn't see from before, and even more people standing around in creepy silence.

  “Crap, there are way too many of them, Damon.” I counted seven this time, each of them dressed impeccably in very nice suits, and looking decidedly out of place in the country. Some of them were leaning against the cars and some of them were standing completely still, arms crossed, staring at the house with bored expressions. It creeped me out that they weren't trying to get in. “What are we going to do?”

  Damon frowned, thinking. “Well, we just need to sit tight until Jeanette gets here. We need to find a place we can defend if they decide to come in after us. Follow me.”

  He crawled out of the room and back into the hallway, and I followed. He led me into the bathroom, where we were able to stand without any issues, because there was no window. I shut the door behind me. “It's weird that they haven't tried to come in.”

  “Did you lock the front door behind us when we came into the house?”

  I thought about it for a minute, then shook my head. “I don't think so.”

  “So the front door is wide open?”

  “No, I closed it, I think. I didn't lock it, though.” I stared at the bathroom door – the slab of wood being the only thing standing between us and all the vampires outside - then reached down and pushed in the lock with a click.

  “Oh, good,” Damon's voice dripped with sarcasm. “Lock the door. That will surely keep the vampires from getting to us. Any other bright ideas?”

  I smirked at him, then stepped into the shower. I pulled him in there with me, then grabbed the shower curtain and closed it around us.

  Damon looked at the shower curtain and just shook his head. “Jeanette better get here real soon.”

  We sat there for a few minutes, trying to hear what was going on outside. I could hear an occasional beep and static from what sounded like a walkie-talkie, and the men and women outside speaking in murmured voices. It seemed there was a disagreement about what the best course of action was in dealing with us. A rough sounding masculine voice was suggesting burning the house down, while a (in my opinion, far more level headed) male voice insisted they exercise caution when it came to handling the situation. One of them asked if anyone had tried just knocking on the door, but that question was met with a brief moment of silence before they went back to arguing about how much firepower they would need to simply start spraying a mass of bullets into the house and hoping for the best.

  Finally, the voices stopped. The man who argued for caution cleared his throat and simply asked, “Excuse me, Mr. Truvenart. Ms. Jones. Would you please come out here and join us for a moment?”

  I stared at Damon, wide eyed. “Is he serious?”

  The longer we sat in that bathroom, the angrier and more annoyed Damon seemed to become. Now, he clenched his fists and glared in the direction of the voice. “We should go out there.”

  My mouth dropped open and I gawked at him. “What? Are you crazy? We are completely outnumbered. They'll kill us!”

  “We just have to stall until Jeanette gets here. If they just want to talk, then we'll talk. If they want to fight, well...”

  “Well, what? You'll stand there and let them punch your pretty face in and hope you remain conscious until Jeanette gets here to save you?”

  “Not with you at my back. I think we can take them.”

  “I think you're delusional.”

  “That's never stopped you before,” he grinned.

  “True.” I sighed loudly, then pulled open the shower curtain and stepped out of the tub. “I suppose it's better than getting burned to death if they decide to go with that other option.” I opened the bathroom door, and Damon followed me into the hallway and to the front door. Looking outside, I could see that the vampires that originally were in the backyard had moved to the front. The prince leaned against one of the black cars, looking bored. She was wearing sunglasses, even though it was dark, yet still managed to make it look cool. Andre stood in front of her and slightly to the left, hands clasped behind his back, waiting patiently, his enforcer standing next to him. The rest stood around in various positions, ranging from boredom to mild curiosity.

  When Andre spoke, I was surprised to discover that he was the one who had asked us to come outside. “Thank you for joining us.” His voice was smooth and had a strange calming effect, which was very different from the gravelly voice I remembered hearing at Jeanette's house. The more he spoke, the more I suddenly found myself wanting to do whatever he asked, and that pissed me off.

  Flinging open the front door with a loud bang, I stood there with my arms crossed, defiant. “You want to talk to us? Fine. Send your little friends home, and we'll come out and listen to what you have to say.”

  Well, a lot of the vampires in the yard did not like that, at all. Like I had flipped a switch, every single one of them stood at attention and glared in my direction. I could practically feel the rage and animosity being directed at me. I pulled a Jeanette and stared right at Andre, raising an eyebrow and leaning against the door jamb like I had all the time in the world to argue with him about it. Ignoring the other vampires seemed to infuriate them further, and more than one took a menacing step forward, as if they were going to take care of me all by themselves. I could feel Damon move up behind me and the tension in the air ratcheted up even further.

  The Prince hadn't moved a muscle the entire time, but now she stood in one smooth, graceful movement. Everyone stopped moving and stood there, waiting. She gave a slight, barely perceptible nod, and, as if they had practiced it, each of the vampires (with the exception of Andre and the big guy enforcer that had also never moved during the drama) returned to their vehicles, climbed inside, and drove away. One of the vampires drove off on the motorcycle the Prince had rode in on, and I wondered how she was going to get home, until I saw her climb into the back seat of the car she had been leaning against. Wordlessly, the enforcer climbed into the front passenger seat, slamming the door shut behind him.